In 1923, Douglas built five Douglas World Cruisers to attempt the first flight around the world. In Seattle, the official starting point for the journey, Boeing employees exchanged the planes' wheels for pontoon floats for the long over-water flights. The planes were named for four major American cities, Seattle, Chicago, Boston and New Orleans. On April 4, 1924, the four took off from Sand Point on Lake Washington on the first leg of their long flight. The Seattle, trapped in fog, crashed on an Alaskan mountainside. After walking ten days, the two-man crew reached safety. The other three DWCs continued on and were kept flying with the help of 15 extra engines, 14 extra sets of floats and duplicates of all airframe parts stashed at various sites around the world. On June 26, they reached Calcutta, India. The DWCs departed Orkney Island in Scotland on July 30, refitted again as seaplanes. On August 3, with nearly three-quarters of the flight completed, the Boston made a forced landing in the mid-Atlantic. The crew was rescued and reunited with the Chicago and New Orleans on September 3 in Nova Scotia. Two days later, the prototype DWC joined the group and was named Boston II, so the original's crew could complete the flight. On September 28, as landplanes, they returned to Seattle. They had logged 27,553 miles in six months and six days, flown over 28 countries, and crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The flight was the greatest feat in aviation up to that time and earned Douglas Aircraft Company its motto, First Around the World.